


By A Women's Hand

by allonsytotumblr



Category: Jewish Scripture & Legend
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Feminist Themes, Ghosts, Jewish Character, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 14:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17664608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsytotumblr/pseuds/allonsytotumblr
Summary: Some feminist badassery and women supporting women in ancient Israel.





	By A Women's Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zdenka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/gifts).



Judith sleeps.

In the winter she sleeps with her body turned in on itself: legs bent, head and spine curled against the cold. In the summer she sleeps sprawled out on top of her blankets, none of her limbs touching, so as not to create unnecessary heat.

Always since her husband died, she sleeps alone. Sometimes she wonders: would she trade the hours of solitude at night for someone beside her again, but in the day she sees the order of her household, and the fruits of her hands all around her, and she thinks no, she would not.

But now Judith does not think about these things, nor about the enemy poised to overpower them, for she sleeps, and she dreams.

In her dream, she wanders in the place between her people’s dwellings and the camp of the Greeks. A figure approaches her. It is a woman, her clothing rich and foreign, but she would have been a queen even without all of that, for strength and compassion and dignity shines out of her face.

“Who are you?” Judith asks, the other’s presence nearly robbing her of words.

“Esther.” The reply is simple, and the voice that gives it is beautiful.

Judith kneels, knowing that before her is the Esther of long ago who changed her name and became queen, but did not forget her God and His people in their hour of need.

“Come!” Judith says, looking up, and reaching out for this woman's hand, for Judith thinks that Esther must have been sent from Heaven and knows that she can again deliver them. “For now our people are greatly troubled-”

The woman takes Judith’s hand, but only to raise her up, so they stand eye to eye.

“No, Judith, not me- you,” she says, and her tone is not angry nor is it commanding. It says she has seen the future, and she is pleased with Judith’s actions therein.

Esther speaks to Judith for a long time, and then the apparition draws close to her and kisses her forehead.

“Go.”

She wakes. It is morning, and there is knowledge in her head of what she must do. Judith speaks wisdom before the elders, and they respond that she is a wise women, but all that is to say that she is only a woman, and she may pray for the people, nothing else.

“No,” Esther had told her, when Judith had asked her if she was meant to pray to save their people. “Not only that. The deed you do will be handed down to the children of our race from age to age.”

“I cannot tell you what I will do,” Judith says to the men.

“Go in peace then,” they say to her. She is already forgotten.

As Judith prostates her soul before the Lord in preparation, she thinks of Esther calling on her ancestors before her audience with the king. As she dresses in the clothes she had put away after becoming a widow, she thinks of this other woman in Persia, readying herself to go before the king to save their people. As she is met by the Greek guards, she thinks of Esther, before the doors of her husband’s court- forbidden to enter on pain of death, and yet going forward. Esther went to her king to have Haman killed, but Judith will do it herself.

So she goes to meet Holofernes, and they dine.

It seems impossible that he does not see it is all a facade. To think that she would sin with him! The men and their attention makes her sick, but she smiles.

Four days she remains- more than double Esther and her two nights- but courage is with Judith, and four days she lives in the enemy’s camp and lies to them with her every breath.

When Judith is left alone with the sleeping head general of all the Greeks, she kills him quickly- no hesitation on her part, no scream on his. It is done, she is gone from his tent, and her people are free.

As in her dream, Judith is between the two camps, but not wandering this time. She goes home swiftly, bringing their deliverance.

Later, when the Greeks have fled, when the camp has been looted, when she has laid aside her wreath of olive branches, she again meets Esther in her dreams, and this time it is she who does Judith homage. “You are the highest honor of our race,” she says, smiling.

And Israel is at peace.

 

"Judith," by August Ridel, 1840.

**Author's Note:**

> I hoped that you liked it!


End file.
